How to Type Unicode Characters in LibreOffice

arindam

2 years ago

This guide explains how easily you can type Unicode characters in LibreOffice.

Unicode is a character encoding standard accepted by all platforms, devices, and languages for computers. All characters, including special, display and non-displayable characters, emojis of all English and non-English languages have unique code defined by Unicode. Hence it is very important to know how you can type it in the world’s best free and open-source office platform – LibreOffice.

Table of Contents

How to type Unicode Characters in LibreOffice

Follow the below steps to insert Unicode characters in LibreOffice. Remember the steps are different in Windows and Linux systems, so follow accordingly.

For your reference, here is a list of Unicode characters.

Open LibreOffice Writer, Calc, Draw, or any modules.
Put the cursor where you want to type the Unicode character.
For Windows: Type the Unicode number. Then type ALT+x.
For Linux: Press CTRL+SHIFT+U and then type the Unicode number.
For macOS: See the below instructions.

You should see the Unicode characters at your Cursor position.

Example for Windows and Linux

In the below image, there are lots of different Unicode characters. This has been picked up from here.

Say you want to add a little snowman and a football from the above table. The corresponding Unicode is 26C4 and 26BD.

Now you can type the number and then press ALT+X in Windows, and in Linux, press, CTRL+SHIFT+U, then type the number. For macOS, see below section.

This would look like this:

Adding UNICODE in macOS

If you are using macOS, the process is a little different.
Open Settings > Keyboard > Input Sources. Enable the option “Show input menu in menu bar”. See Figure 3.
In the macOS topbar, click on the keyboard icon; Select “Show emoji & symbols” to bring up the Character Viewer. See Figure 4.
From the Character Viewer menu, select customize list. See Figure 5.
In the categories window, scroll down to the “Code tables” block. Expand and select Unicode. Press OK. See Figure 6.
In the Character Viewer window, you should see Unicode option at the left pane. See Figure 7.
You can now browse the codes via row & columns. Or search with keyword.
For example, I searched “snow”.
Now you can right-click and click Copy character info. See Figure 8.
In the LibreOffice Writer window, paste the value. See Figure 9. And you are all set!

Enable input menu in menu bar (Figure 3)

Paste the unicode to LibreOffice Writer (Figure 9)

Unicode contains all characters and, most importantly, emojis as well. And they also can be typed similar way in LibreOffice. This applies to all modules – Writer, Calc, Draw and Impress.

Remember, Unicode support is added in LibreOffice from version 5.0+.

Inserting special characters from menu

In a situation where the above method doesn’t work, you may try the special character option from the menu.
From the menu, select Insert > Special characters (for both LibreOffice and OpenOffice).
The special characters window will open. This shows the available characters according to the fonts installed in your system. If some fonts are missing, you may not find a suitable character. So, you may search for the proper character (or related character for your use case).
Select the character and click Insert for LibreOffice. And for OpenOffice, click OK.
And you should see the character inserted in your document at the cursor position.